


as my eyes begin to close

by marquis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, puppy!Liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:59:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marquis/pseuds/marquis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Liam turns into a puppy for a day and no one has any idea why.<br/>(Inspired by <a href="http://neverhadthewords.tumblr.com/post/44705113040/laughingcrying-dulosis-rare-childhood-photo">this post</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	as my eyes begin to close

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serendipitee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitee/gifts).



Upon waking up, Louis notices two things: there is a puppy beside him in the bed, tail wagging and tiny paws resting on his hands, and, after sitting up, Liam is no longer in the other hotel bed. The sheets are twisted up in disarray and his clothes are strewn about on the floor, though, which suggests that he is still in the room, or, at the very least, in the hotel.

Oddly enough, he can’t decide which one confuses him more.

Liam is prone to doing weird and spontaneous things, like shaving his head and getting tattoos and buying puppies. He’s prone to getting excited and following through without thinking about it until afterwards. He is not, however, prone to leaving a mess about the place. Any place, really. A room is often cleaner when Liam leaves than it was when he arrived, a curious phenomenon examined by every single person he’s ever met, including – and Louis has done his research, he _knows_ this for a _fact_ – Liam’s mum.

So why are his things all over the floor? And Louis wants to wonder about it, really, only the puppy has chosen that now is a good time to come over and lick at his ear. It’s kind of entirely too distracting, and Louis really should be asking Liam why the puppy was necessary anyway, when he’s got Brit back home and another golden retriever is only going to make it harder to find a pet-sitter when one is required.

“Hello,” Louis greets, rolling over to hide his poor ear from the onslaught and pet the little fluff of the puppy’s neck. “Where’d you come from?” The puppy sneezes. Something inside of Louis dies just a little bit.

A quick inspection reveals that Liam is actually nowhere in their room, which means that he is either in the gym or at the pool doing something ridiculous and athletic far too early in the morning. Louis is planning out exactly how he should bring it up, if he should shove the dog in Liam’s face and demand an explanation, when he realizes that the hotel probably isn’t too keen on the idea of pets in their nice rooms and wouldn’t like a puppy tearing everything up, so he shouldn’t bring it with him anywhere.

This brings the question of how Liam might have gotten it into the hotel in the first place, hiding it in his jacket and trying to be inconspicuous, and the image is too silly but so unbearably _Liam_. Louis grins, can’t even help it. The puppy snorts at him in response.

“Yes, well, you probably thought it was funny when it happened,” he tells it, just the slightest bit indignant. Only it’s a dog and it probably didn’t, and Louis notices that he is wasting his time talking to something that can’t understand him.

He pulls on a pair of joggers and the first shirt he finds – it’s one of Liam’s, and that makes him a little proud, because he’s kept everything nice and neat while Daddy Direction seems to have forgotten how – and makes his way to the door, turning to the dog just once more before leaving to find Liam. It’s sitting on the floor just a little ways behind him now, tail still wagging and tongue hanging out of its mouth.

“Stay,” he says. The puppy yaps at him, just once, and he closes the door before it can follow him or make another sound.

As it turns out, none of the boys have seen him. The only one that’s even conscious when Louis knocks is Niall, and he’s only just finishing his breakfast, shaking his head and talking through a mouthful of eggs.

“Sorry, mate, I haven’t seen him; check the pool, maybe.” And Zayn is passed out on the bed behind him, face-down in the pillows, with Harry on the couch because he was too pissed to bother with making it back to his own room last night. Niall grins when he sees Louis looking. “They’re not so good at holding their liquor,” he whispers conspiratorially, as though Louis didn’t already know.

“Right, well. You keep an eye on them, and I’ll hunt down Liam.” Louis turns and makes his way down the hall, stopping in his room just one last time to check on the puppy in case it needs something.

It doesn’t. The puppy has found one of his jumpers and made a nest of it, curled up in the center with the sleeves and hood twisted up around him. He perks up when Louis opens the door, but Louis shakes his head and points a finger.

“Don’t you dare, mister. Stay right there until I get back.” It seems to listen, doing no more than twitching its ear. “I’m going to go downstairs and look for Liam, alright? You stay. _Stay_.” The dog barks at him once more as he’s closing the door; Louis tells himself not to feel bad.

The pool isn’t even open this early, Louis discovers, and upon entering the gym all he finds is an old woman on the treadmill with leg warmers and, apparently, the same inexplicable love for early mornings that Liam has. Louis waves hello to her when she sees him in the mirror, just for the sake of being polite, and then dashes out of the room before she can ask that he take a picture or sign something for a granddaughter. He’s on a mission.

He gets a look of what might be oncoming exhaustion and might be _I told you so_ from his new friend when he returns to the room, and it’s so incredibly familiar that it hits him all at once: Liam is a puppy. The puppy is Liam. At some point in the past eight or nine hours, Liam has gone canine.

Louis sits down heavily on the edge of his bed. Liam the Puppy hops up next to him, prodding at his hand with a cold, wet nose.

“Right. Okay. Best mate is a dog. Just another day in the life,” Louis states, trying to sound nonchalant and sounding maybe just a little bit hysterical. “You see, Li, this is why we don’t eat food that the fans give us. Honestly.”

Liam the Puppy doesn’t react. Louis wonders if Liam can still understand what he’s saying, or if he’s reverted so far into the world of a dog that he no longer can. He doesn’t get time to test it out, though; there’s a sudden knocking on his door, and Liam starts growling at the door viciously. As if he could do anything at all to anyone on the other side; Louis has had _goldfish_ that were more intimidating.

A look through the peephole reveals Harry standing on the other side, with Zayn and Niall lined up behind him pretending to hide. Louis thinks about telling them to come back later, when he’s figured out what’s going on and where to go from here, but there’s not much chance that anything will be changing anytime soon. So he opens the door and lets the three of them amble on past.

“Did you find our Leemo?” Niall asks. He spots Liam before Louis can actually answer, presumably because Harry and Zayn have both stopped to stare at it. “Why do you have a dog?”

Louis gestures grandly towards Liam, and Liam, for what it’s worth, seems willing to play the part. He straightens up and his ears twitch to attention, tail sitting still for the first time since Louis woke up, it seems. “This _is_ Liam.”

There’s a beat before all three of them start to laugh, little bursts of giggles and sniggers. “Right, Lou,” Zayn snorts. “I would have expected better from you, honestly. Is Li in the closet, then?”

And then they all three realize that Louis isn’t laughing along with them. Their smiles start to fade, almost in sync with one another.

“You’re joking,” Harry states in disbelief. Louis shakes his head. “Shit.”

Liam the puppy whines from where he’s seated, pawing at one of his ears. It occurs to Louis that he should probably attempt feeding Liam, or taking him for a walk, or something. “We should order breakfast, I think,” he starts, “and figure it out from there.”

Niall nods enthusiastically, as if he hasn’t already eaten once today. “Yes!” he exclaims, leaping for the phone. He knows well enough what’s on the menu, so Louis leaves him to it, turning to face the other two.

“It’s a good thing we have the day off,” Zayn sighs, plopping down onto the bed beside Liam. The puppy automatically moves to curl into his side, nudging at a hand until Zayn complies and starts to stroke his fur. “Then again, I don’t suppose Liam would be irresponsible enough to turn into a dog on the day of a concert. It would hurt everyone’s feelings.”

They all seem to be taking this relatively well, Louis thinks, and maybe that should be concerning. If their lives are unusual enough that this hardly even fazes them, then perhaps they need to reevaluate. Even so, Louis can hardly find it in him to figure out exactly how they might begin doing that, so he doesn’t question it. He sits down next to Zayn and pulls on Liam’s tail until he yelps, turning to nip at Louis’ fingers.

The food comes up and they all feed Liam off of their plates, letting him grab and munch on whatever he likes. It’s probably not healthy now that he’s a dog, but he’s technically a person and hopefully will be again in the near future, so there can’t be any negative effects, and besides, there’s no way to smuggle dog food into the hotel without someone getting suspicious. Niall spills jam all over the comforter and Liam rolls into the stain when Harry goes to scratch his belly, and the syrup from Zayn’s pancakes gets smeared all over the pillow, and by the time Louis’ tea is knocked out of his hands, he figures they already owe the hotel a fortune anyway and there’s no point in worrying about future damages.

He takes Liam out onto the balcony for a bathroom break and refuses to let him back in until he’s defiled the potted plant. It’s a right laugh, and Liam seems to accept his fate relatively well.

That’s the one thing that worries Louis. Liam would never be one to roll into jam and then shake it off, and he certainly wouldn’t pee off the balcony with such enthusiasm. He would insist that the boys eat their meal at the table, and he would try as hard as he could to clean up a mess. When he comes trotting back into the room and leaves a trail of purple and dirt and stick through the carpet, Louis voices this concern to the lads.

“Might be he’s decided to act his age,” Niall remarks. “He’s only about four or five in dog-years right now, ain’t he?”

Louis smiles just a little bit. “Something tells me that Liam as a toddler was the kid with his crayons organized according to color in the box.” Zayn and Harry agree, and Niall concedes with a nod.

“D’you think that he can’t understand us?” he suggests, leaning down to tug on Liam’s ear. “Maybe the longer he stays a dog, the more he turns into one. You know?”

The idea makes perfect sense to Louis, anyway. He hopes they don’t have to wait long enough to figure out if it’s true. “Yeah, I do.”

That’s the last thing they say for a little while. The four of them finish their breakfast off quietly while Liam prances around near their feet, looking every bit as happy and careless as every other dog Louis has ever known. He growls at the curtains and bites at them in a way that is probably supposed to be scary, and might possibly be adorable under other circumstances, but it makes something cold twist inside of Louis’ stomach.

He decides that if anyone is going to get Liam back to how he was, it’s going to have to be him. It’s not quite clear _how_ he’s going to do it, but he knows he has to try, and he shuffles all of the other boys out of the room with the instructions to distract Paul and the rest of security so that no one will come in and find him with a puppy instead of a bandmate. He places a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the handle of his room and pulls out Liam’s laptop, hacking into it and signing in to the free internet provided by the hotel.

 _Why has my mate suddenly turned into a dog?_ he asks Google, although he knows it probably won’t help. Sites warning against the inhalation of bath salts send him pop-ups on other sites talking about curses and weird witchy voodoo, and while he’s not sure about their fans, he’s pretty sure Liam wouldn’t get involved in any of that. He tries again. _Metamorphosis: man-to-dog_. And it’s all conspiracy theories on werewolves and bigfoot, sightings of sasquatch up in the Himalayas.

Louis slams his head against the keyboard. _oidhgziof;rje_ reveals no more than the first two searches, although he probably wouldn’t have been altogether too shocked if it had. Liam tugs on his pantleg, and Louis scratches his sticky ears absentmindedly.

There’s not much left to do. He surfs the internet for a while, looking for something, _anything_ that might help him figure out what to do, but the only sort of advice he can even begin to find is in the fanfiction that he refuses to read. When the “pollen” that transforms the character is also described as being sexual in nature, he learns, it is probably not a legitimate source, and so is best left alone and ignored entirely.

He has one last resort saved up, and even though he’s not entirely confident, he thinks that maybe it will tell him something.

“Hello? Liam?” Mrs. Payne’s voice is crackly through the phone speaker. She sounds a little bit groggy, and it’s only when Louis looks at the time that he realizes it’s four o’clock in the afternoon in sunshiny California, and probably about eleven at night back home. Liam comes from an unusual family where everyone goes to bed and wakes up extremely early; it’s appalling.

Louis swallows. “Uhm, no, sorry! This is Louis.”

She sighs. “Oh. Hello, Louis. I was worried there had been an emergency. Can this prank wait until morning?”

He takes offense to that, but chokes it down. Now is not the time. “Actually, Mrs. Payne, I was wondering if anything odd has ever happened to Liam previously. Like, you know, occasionally turning into a dog? Or maybe he turned into something else. Maybe it’s the magic kidney.”

Liam’s mum laughs quietly. “No, Louis, Liam has never been one for turning into animals. His sister Ruth, on the other hand, was thoroughly convinced that she was a fish for a week or two when she was younger.” She yawns, and it makes Louis feel just a little bit tired, too. “Not that I don’t enjoy your lovely voice, darling, but do you think this could wait for some other time?”

“Right. Of course.” Louis nods, rubbing at his eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Payne. Sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s quite alright, dear!” she tells him. “Tell the boys I send my love.”

He hangs up after that and looks down at Liam, with the ratty, matted fur and the jam and the syrup and looking every bit like a puppy without an ounce of Liam in him. Fear creeps up on him again, little whispers of _never coming back_ and _what’s happening_ that he finds awfully difficult to ignore.

It’s pointless to worry over, he knows, so he decides to stow those thoughts carefully away in a part of his brain that is then placed under lock and key. He decides to focus on what he can do, like cleaning up the room and the puppy that may or may not turn into Liam later.

Only that proves a lot harder than it seems, when Liam seems set on running wild and avoiding anything that might get him clean. He pounces out of the bath more times than Louis can count, splashing water over everything and spilling shampoo and conditioner all over the floor. His fur is knotted and tangled, but he won’t let Louis anywhere near him with a comb, and what little water is left in the bath is starting to fall down the faulty drain.

It’s complicated, and by the time Louis is finished, it’s nearing nine o’clock and all of the towels in the room are either drenched or soaking up water on the floor. Liam shakes himself out one final time before stumbling out the door, leaving Louis drenched and exhausted in the middle of the ruined bathroom.

He orders dinner for the two of them next and lets Liam back out onto the balcony while he waits for it to arrive so that he can clean up just a little bit. He packs Liam’s clothes into the suitcase and folds up the ruined duvet of his bed, placing it and the pillows in a neat pile in the center of the bed. A quick search through his own things reveals exactly what he’d been looking for, a little baby onesie in green and white stripes given to him one day by a fan after an interview where he mentioned wanting to raise a family.

When Liam comes back into the room, he’s shivering and damp, and he doesn’t protest at all when Louis fits him into the onesie carefully. Big brown eyes blink up at him as they eat dinner together on the table, Louis from a plate and Liam from a bowl that he’d asked to be brought up along with the food.

It looks like they’re going to be sharing a bed that night, though, and Louis wonders what it’s going to be like in the morning if Liam happens to change back in the middle of the night. Is it going to be awkward? Will Liam even remember what happened? It’s difficult to say. Louis leans over until he’s nose-to-nose with his charge.

“Liam, I want you to bark just once if you understand me.”

Liam licks at his nose instead, probably searching for more food or something. Louis sighs.

“Right, well, now that we’ve got that settled,” he mutters, wiping at his nose with the back of his hands. “There’s just the one thing that I haven’t tried, and I’d really love for you to never ever know that I’ve done it, if you do turn back to human, so it’s probably best that you don’t understand me anyway.”

It looks like Liam is far more invested in gnawing at the sleeves of his new clothes, though, so Louis thinks that he might be safe. He picks Liam up and carries him over to the bed, getting settled underneath the bedclothes and allowing Liam to curl up under his chin.

“Listen, I’d, um. I’d really like it if you didn’t stay a dog,” Louis starts, voice unsteady and uncertain. “It’s just that… I really like human-Liam, you know? A lot. Probably more than he – you – know that I do. And I’ve never said anything, so it’s not likely that you even knew it before, so I hope you don’t know about it after this.” Liam huffs out a little breath, and Louis smiles. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You can go to sleep in a minute, promise. It’s not that you aren’t adorable as a dog, or anything, it’s just that – you know, human-Liam is my best friend. And I love him. You. I love you. So if you could maybe come back sometime soon, I think I’d like that.”

He feels like he’s a mess, stumbling and stuttering over his words, but Liam doesn’t even seem to register his existence anymore, snuffling and whining quietly in his sleep. Louis sighs for what feels like the millionth time that day and shuts his eyes, dreaming of dogs with Liam’s voice and jam stains in the carpet.

One of the dogs, in fact, runs up to bite at his neck. “Louis,” it whispers, little sharp teeth glinting, “did you mean it?”

And Louis wonders what the Liam dog means by _it_ , but he doesn’t have time to ask; he’s being tickled and nipped and prodded, teased until he’s rolling and gasping for air. He wakes up to find fingers prodding his side, sunlight streaming in from the balcony, and Liam in the bed next to him.

Funny. He distinctly remembers Liam being a puppy yesterday. “Liam?” he gasps, twisting away from another jab aimed for under his rib cage. “Liam, stop, I’m awake!”

“Yes, and it’s about time!” Liam groans, grinning. “I’ve only been trying for the past fifteen minutes.”

Louis shakes his head. “Not possible! You’ve only been human for the past two.”

There’s a pause, where Louis tries to figure out exactly why Liam might have been a dog in the first place and if he even remembers. Liam’s probably wondering the same thing, from the way his brow is furrowed and his lips are pressed.

He pokes Louis again. “So. Did you mean it?” he asks.

“Mean what?” Louis retorts, covering his side with his hands to prevent further assault. Liam gives him a look that states very clearly, on no uncertain terms, that he knows _exactly_ what, and suddenly Louis does. His hands move from his side to cover his face and hide his blush. “You couldn’t understand me! You were biting and nibbling and making a right mess of things! You were a _puppy!_ ”

“You did! My god, you _meant_ it!” Liam crows, moving to wrestle Louis’ hands away. Presumably so he can mock Louis for the rest of his life.

“Shut up and leave me to wallow in my pity!” Louis moans, trying to make a joke out of the fact that he’s actually just a little bit disappointed. It doesn’t exactly sound like Liam feels the same way, and that might be more humiliating than anything else. “It’s too early in the morning to deal with unrequited infatuation, Liam!”

The struggle stops. Liam’s got a hand around both of Louis’ wrists, but he’s not attempting to pull them away anymore; he’s just sitting there. After a beat, he starts rubbing small circles with his thumb. “Who says it’s unrequited, Lou? I don’t think it was me, anyway.”

“Wanker!” Louis screeches, sitting up and throwing Liam off-balance. It’s his turn to attack, now, poking Liam in the sides and ticking underneath his neck until they’re both giggly and breathing hard. “You could have said!”

Liam presses a kiss to his nose. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Louis makes it a goal to kiss that stupid grin right off.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is for [Melaney,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitee/pseuds/serendipitee) who is not only my best friend but also a fantastic listener and puts up with more of my crap than she should ever have to. I've been meaning to write this for a while, and then I decided to write it as a present to her because I do not deserve her at all. :D Any feedback is lovely, as always.  
> (Title stolen from "White Nights" by Oh Land.)


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